


My Taste in Music (Is Your Face)

by crescentmoonthemage



Series: Joshler Stuff [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Cute, Drunk Tyler, Josh in Love, M/M, Poor Josh, Shy Tyler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7567081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentmoonthemage/pseuds/crescentmoonthemage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loving Tyler Joseph hurts like hell.</p><p>AKA Five Times Josh Dun wanted to kiss Tyler Joseph and one time he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Taste in Music (Is Your Face)

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: I don't have anything against Jenna- she is very sweet and I love her. She's just not in this fanfic because I wanted some Joshler because of post-concert feels. 
> 
> Anybody else see them in Berkeley on 7/21? SO GOOD!
> 
> -CM

_ First _

It’s late, very late, and Josh doesn’t even remember where they are any more. Somewhere in Maryland, maybe. After all, they’ve played so many shows on the heels of other shows, one after the other after the other after the other that Josh has stopped paying attention to where the tour buses end up, it’s all a blur of lights and sounds and happiness. 

 

He’s brushing his teeth when he hears the door to his room opening, and looks out to see Tyler stumbling in, a jet-lagged, travel weariness in him. He’s wearing the rose patterned kimono (god knows where he got it, the managers keep all their costumes under lock and key,) and clutching a ukulele. Ty looks very surprised to see him inside, his eyes go all squinty and his mouth does that little quirky thing that Josh notices sometimes and pretends not to. “What are y’doing here, Joshie?” Tyler slurs, and it’s less from drink than from six months of being on the road. 

 

“This is my room, Ty. Yours is across the hall,” says Josh, spitting toothpaste into the sink and coming out of the bathroom to stand in front of his friend.

 

“No, it’s mine, ‘m the lead singer,” says Tyler, before promptly collapsing on Josh’s unmade bed, face down. When Josh shakes his shoulder, the other man doesn’t move. Josh resorts to pulling the ukulele out from underneath Tyler so it doesn’t get too smashed and settling into a chair beside the bed. There’s an old interview playing through Josh’s mind, something he said sticking in the front of his brain.

 

_ If we were staying in a hotel together,  _ he had said,  _ I’d let Tyler have the nice pillow, I’d let him have the whole bed, I’d stay on the floor.  _

  
  


_ Loving Tyler,  _ thinks Josh,  _ hurts like hell.  _

 

In that moment, Tyler Joseph looks like something out of a painting, all calm breath and dark hair and splayed limbs and pink roses on red sheets. Josh nearly leans forward, nearly brushes a lock of Ty’s hair from his face, just nearly, but his hand stops inches before. He nearly squeezes in behind Tyler on the little twin bed, just nearly, but doesn’t do that either. He instead turns off the bathroom light, gets a spare blanket from the closet to lay over his friend, and falls asleep curled in the little chair instead. 

 

Wouldn’t want to make things awkward.

 

_ Second  _

 

They’re in New York City. Even from in the basement of the theatre, Josh can hear the fans screaming and though he’s terrified, though he’s always terrified, he can’t help but smile. In the mirror, he smudges on red under his eyes, another night of war paint, another night of fighting his fears. He’s about to slide the ski mask over his head when there’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” he says, without looking, and when he finally does, Tyler’s standing there, in his red suit. He shuffles his feet and tosses his own mask from hand to hand. “Hey, Jishua,” he says, smiling. 

 

Josh unconsciously tucks a lock of red hair behind his ear. “Hey, man, is it time to go on?”

 

Tyler shrugs. “Nearly. Stagehands haven’t come to get me yet. They always come to your room first, so I figured I’d save them the trouble of coming to mine too.”

 

“Your room’s literally across the hall,” says Josh, but Tyler’s already not paying attention, browsing on Josh’s phone. “Thanks for not changing the password, bud,” he says, absentmindedly scrolling.

 

Josh smiles, continues smudging the red makeup until he gets it just right. When there’s another knock on the door and someone says: “Josh, it’s time,” he slides his black ski mask on and prepares to leave. Tyler’s put the phone down and is examining his own ski mask. He stands up and opens the door, but at the last second he turns back towards Josh, brown eyes laughing. He rips Josh’s ski mask off in one motion, and at first, Josh is confused before Tyler’s putting his own mask into Josh’s hands and dashing off towards the stage. 

 

When Josh slides Tyler’s mask over his head, he breathes in and instantly feels at home, because it smells like Tyler does, like late nights and coffee and two boys taking on the world together. He hates himself for wanting it. 

 

_ Third _

 

They’re in a gas station in Texas. Josh wearily paws through stacks of processed crap and picks out some chip that doesn’t sound terrible and a blue Gatorade. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his pink hair’s looking ragged. He really should dye it again.

 

Tyler’s trying on cheap sunglasses across the store, and when Josh walks over beside him, he does a dramatic turn to show off some huge pink glasses, covered in rhinestones. Josh almost chokes on air and starts laughing so hard the people behind the counter start looking at them strangely.

 

In the line, Tyler takes Josh’s Gatorade, cracks it open, and drinks half in one swig. Josh smiles, secretly, because he can never refuse Tyler anything, he knows that. 

 

(If on the tour bus later, he steals half of Tyler’s peach rings and then falls asleep on him, no one says a word.)

 

_ Fourth _

Tyler creeps into his room on the tour bus when they’re on the road from Arizona to New Mexico. It’s hot as hell, and the sunlight outside’s blinding. He tosses Josh a grocery bag. “What’s this, Ty?” he asks. The younger man shoots him a wolfish grin and flops onto Josh’s bed, cool as a cucumber. When Josh opens the bag, he finds two Cokes, a six pack of some beer Josh can’t pronounce, a bottle of bleach, and hair dye. Not one packet, mind you, there’s so many fucking colors, all in little boxes of their own. Josh pulls one out, reads it.  _ Lavender Afterglow,  _ it says.

 

“We’ve got an eight hour drive. We’re making your hair a rainbow,” says Tyler, and he’s grinning and suddenly, Josh is too, because he can never refuse Tyler anything, because Tyler’s what makes him happy. 

 

“I usually just go to a salon,” says Josh. “And besides, how am I supposed to do this on my own?”

 

Tyler shrugs. “I’m here to help. I’m not leaving till your hair’s fresh again. Plus, I watched a video. I’m a pro.”

 

When Josh rips off his ski mask that night during the show, the crowd goes insane. Seeing himself on a Jumbotron, Josh does have to admit that he looks amazing. It’s all in stripes from left to right, swatches of pink and electric blue and lime green and orange and lavender and bright, cherry red and other colors too, so many that his head spins to remember them all, he feels like a cloud, he feels weightless.  

  
  


_ Fifth  _

 

It’s the end of the tour. A year and a half, world-wide, and it’s the end of the tour. They’re on stage somewhere in California and it’s almost the end of the set and Josh is excited, he’s imagining a nap, perhaps a very long one. Some cocktails, maybe. Tyler’s eyes. He’s drumming as well as he always is and the crowd’s as pumped as they always are. Sometimes he likes being the drummer, because it means he sits behind Tyler and all the crowd’s far enough away for anyone to notice him staring, because he does stare,  _ a lot.  _

 

He admits it to himself, sometimes, late at night.  _ I am in love with Tyler Joseph. I have been in love with Tyler Joseph for a long time.  _ He always thinks those two first, to let himself have a brief moment of happiness, before he tells himself the truth.  _ Tyler Joseph will never love me in return. I am like his brother and I can never have him.  _

 

It is the truth, after all.

 

Here’s the part he’ll never admit to himself: being in love with Tyler Joseph kills him inside. It’s all the little gestures that Tyler makes, it’s Tyler blowing kisses at him from across the stage, it’s the two of them napping side-by-side, it’s them sharing food and clothing and talking of moving in with one another once the Emotional Roadshow is done, and it kills him, every night.

 

That’s the part he’ll never say to himself.

 

After the song’s done, when the lights are cued for  _ Goner  _ and the crowd’s cheering, Ty doesn’t sit at the piano like normal, he glances toward the lights, the sound crew, before dashing off stage. Josh almost gets up to follow him, almost, but doesn’t because before he can, Tyler’s back on stage with the stupid kimono and a ukulele.  _ What the fuck are you doing, Ty?  _ he asks to himself, and when he glances off stage he can see that the manager’s fuming.  _ The uke part’s done, what are you doing?  _

 

Tyler takes the uke, and he sidles on up to the mic and he says, in a breathy rush of air: “I had this thought today, and I knew that I had to act on it, I knew I had to do something.” He turns and glances towards Josh for just an instant, before he says to the crowd. “This is one we haven’t played in a while, and, well, I dedicate this to Joshua Dun.”

 

Then he starts playing familiar chords and Josh almost cries. Ty’s crooning into the mic and the crowd’s going wild. He’s singing something Josh knows by heart, they both do:  _ Wise men say, only fools rush in... _

 

Loving Tyler Joseph kills Joshua Dun, every time. 

 

_ Cause I can’t help falling in love with you.  _

  
  


_ Afterward _

 

People talk about post concert depression, but what about post-tour depression? Sure, there were the drinks, there were the parties, the massive hangovers and the sleeping for days on end. When Josh finally begins to feel human, it’s a week after the concert’s done, and he’s not really human because he’s immeasurably calm. He misses the whole atmosphere, the banging on drums, the noise and the people and the lights and Tyler’s smile. 

 

Ty’s halfway across the country in his own empty apartment, of course. They’ve made plans to travel Europe, they text almost every day, but still it feels  _ lonely.  _ They both decided that a two-month break from each other was the best thing after the tour, to see their other friends and recuperate before making plans for the next album, but was it really? 

 

Josh’s life feels pointless for a few weeks. He putters around, seeing old friends and sleeping until there’s a knock on his front door one morning.  When he opens it, in barges Tyler, with an overflowing suitcase and a uke in one hand. He plops down on Josh’s couch. “Can we order pizza?” he asks. 

 

Josh is too shocked to really register anything, so he closes the door without speaking. “What on earth are you doing here?” he asks, after a long moment.

 

Tyler shrugs. “We talked that whole break thing, and we talked about moving in together before that, and I decided that moving in with my best friend was a much better alternative to not seeing him.”

 

Josh smiles, but then catches himself. “It’s a one bedroom apartment, my man.”

 

Tyler grins. “Shouldn’t be a problem for us, Jish.”

 

Josh’s heart skips a beat in his chest, but he passes it off as lack of sleep and asks, carefully, “What do you mean, Ty?”

 

Tyler doesn’t say anything for a long, long, time. Finally he picks up the ukulele from where he left it on the coffee table and strums one single chord, before meeting eyes with Josh. He sings one, single line, crooning it in the voice Josh knows so well, the voice that Josh loves. “Cause I can’t help falling in love with you.”

 

In an instant, Josh is reaching across the coffee table and his hands are fisting in Tyler’s tank top and the ukulele is falling to the floor and their lips are meeting. Tyler’s hands come up, one’s in Josh’s hair and the other’s on the small of his back and everything feels like fire. 

 

When they finally pull apart, their foreheads are touching. Tyler’s voice is breathy. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he’s saying, and Josh is smiling against his lips. “I love you too, asshole,” he says, and the world’s righting itself, finally. 

 

_ If I stay, would it be a sin? _

  
_ Cause I can’t help falling in love with you.  _

**Author's Note:**

> PS check my cover of Goner out on Youtube under the channel SimplySierraMusic
> 
> xoxo from CM


End file.
